historical american girl doll wish list

5 American Girl Dolls I would love to see made

I have a nine year old daughter.  Not too surprisingly we have a lot of various American Girl doll accessories and dolls of varying styles.  Only one of the dolls is a REAL American Girl doll.  A few years ago we bought her the Caroline doll.  I was supremely excited about Caroline because she covers a little known time of American history, the War of 1812, AND she looks somewhat like Princess.

That is one of the joys of American Girl dolls, there are all different kinds, and you can buy one that looks LIKE YOU.  However lately there has been a lot of complaints that historical dolls do not look like America.

And there is some truth to that.

But, here’s the thing.  Mattel wimps out in creating their dolls.  Their most recent historical doll, Melody, while cool, barely touches the top of the pile of amazing historical dolls they could do that represent our nation’s diversity.

5 historical american girl dolls I'd love to see made

 

Here’s the 5 American Girl Dolls I’d love to see made (that I know will never happen)

 

1.  A Chinese American girl working on the railroad.

We’ve all sung the camp fire song “I’ve been working on the railroad.”  Well, most of the rails were built by Chinese immigrants who wanted a new life.  It was hard work.  Why not have a girl like that?  Think of the inspiration she could be as she shows the benefits of hard work, and the trials of working there.

 

2.  A Japanese American girl in the interment camps.

This is a little known, and controversial part of World War 2.  The United States government did not know what to do with the many Japanese Americans who lived on the West Coast.  Some of them might be spies, some of them might be traitors.  Not being sure what else to do, they rounded up most of them and put them in internment camps for the war.  Some was for their safety, because many neighbors were scared of the Japanese, but a lot of it was because of fear.  Think about the amazing story it would make to read about a young girl learning how to navigate in a time like that.

 

3.  An Irish American girl at the turn of the 20th century.

American girl doll because I want to have this picture
Absolutely nothing to do with this post, it just amuses me.

But wait Ticia, I thought you wanted to represent diversity.  I do.  ALL diversity, that means I want to talk about how the Irish were treated in 1900 when many stores in New York City said, “No Irish allowed,” or “Irish need not apply.”  If that isn’t diverse enough for you, then let’s move forward about 30 years and make that same family Jewish (“talking” with Samantha from Le Chaim on the Right on Facebook, I learned Rebecca is Jewish, and those books dealt with the anti-semitism in Russia, but I’d still love to see one for the late 20s/early 30s).  Or another 20 years and make it Puerto Rico.  America has always struggled with how to deal with our immigrant population.  This is nothing new.

 

4.  A Tejano during the Texas Revolution.

There’s a lot of hardship during that time.  It could make for an interesting story, and some interesting set pieces.  Also, it can show a time where different races were all getting along (more or less).

 

5.  Any Native American girl.

American girl dolls
She was really intrigued by the horses. Of course she was also strongly considering the crutches, for obvious reasons.

Right now, we have Kaya  as a doll (and we have her mini doll somewhere in our house, I like the mini-dolls, and wish they had outfits for the mini dolls, sigh), and she is actually currently in production.  Princess and I had fun looking at her toys when we went through the American Girl doll store last week.  There’s some great stuff there.  But, there are dozens of other well-known tribes to learn about, and hundreds of lesser-known tribes.  Why not tackle the Cherokee and the Trail of Tears?

 

My honorable mentions for this topic

 

There are a lot of amazing stories in American history that haven’t been covered yet, I’m just going to cover some well-known eras that deserve some historical dolls: World War 1, Civil War (and that has the potential of having a North and a South line), Vietnam (I don’t think Julie really covers this, but I could be wrong), California Gold Rush, there’s more, but it gets esoteric after this.

historical american girl doll wish list

What HISTORICAL American Girl Dolls would you love to see?


Comments

11 responses to “5 American Girl Dolls I would love to see made”

  1. This is an excellent list. I have several Japanese American friends whose grandparents were sent to those camps during World War II. One of them was posting her grandfather’s journals on Facebook last spring from that time. We have some amazing first person source material to draw from.

    Also Mike’s great grandmother was Cherokee married to an Irish immigrant, so those two of your suggestions would hit really close to home for our family as well.

    I love the idea of showcasing a time when races were working together, and living in California (on a campus built off of the riches of paying Chinese immigrants essentially nothing to build the Pacific railroad) we have a personal tie to that story as well.

    Want to start at historical doll company with me? That’s a pipe dream of mine…

    1. I remember first learning about the interment when I read George Takei’s autobiography in high school. It fascinated me.

  2. I would love to see American Girl stories to stop embellishing the history and writing about difficult moments like the ones you described. It would teach our children more about empathy and diversity. Great post!

    1. A lot of the earlier dolls really do a good job of covering difficult times and topics (Felicity, will she be a patriot or conform to her friends, Addy, being a slave and being a runaway slave, Kirsten, life as a pioneer and leaving everyone, Molly, her Dad serving in WW2). Even Caroline has some difficult topics, her Dad is taken prisoner as a spy by the British. But, I’m really curious to see what the tough topic Mary Ellen (1950s) covers, I haven’t read her books yet. I’m trying to read as many of them as I can…. you know for our history lessons, not because I enjoy reading children’s books.

    2. Ticia-the newer AG historical books aren’t as deep but Mary Ellen deals with vaccines, science, and a disease that is now prevented by vaccinations.

  3. These dolls were really big when my daughters were little girls. They are 27 & 30 now. Great suggestions representing the history & diversity of our country.

    1. And they’re still big now! One of my best friends growing up had one, I never got one as a kid, much to my dismay.

  4. Great suggestions! It always irks me that the newer dolls don’t tackle the deep subjects like the older ones did (granted, not real deep but they were less smut than the newer ones). Have you read the Addy books? Not the new version, they cut some stuff out of those, but the old ones. They were really good!

    Out of all of these my favorite is the Japanese internment camp option. They haven’t made a Japanese American girl that would be a great idea!

    1. It’s on my to-read list. One of the ladies at our homeschool co-op has been raving about it, and how she sobbed as she read it. Thanks for the heads up to look for the old ones, not the new Beforever line.

      As far as I know, there are NO Asian American girls at all.

    2. Julie’s friend Ivy is! But, they retired that doll. And yes, If you have a choice always go original. We bought up all of the old series before the big change. We are huge AG fans!

  5. Samantha Avatar
    Samantha

    Great list! I think for American Girl’s target age range, they do a very good job at handling tough situations (ie poverty in Kit, factories in Samantha) well.

    As I said, American Girl also has a variety of historical books for older kids that tackle tougher issues, and the Dear America series is great, but still both are meant for an age range older than these AG dolls.

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